Iran Will Meet With Gulf Arab States as Mideast Conflict Widens

Iranian officials will meet on Monday in Oman with representatives of some of the Gulf Arab states that it has repeatedly attacked during its war with the United States and Israel, as the regional conflict has widened in recent days.

Yemen has emerged as the latest front in the fighting, with the Iranian-backed Houthi militants there seizing the strategic port of Mokha and the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea last week. They have also attacked Saudi energy sites and sought to blockade Saudi shipping, exacerbating a global oil and gas crisis prompted by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Saudi Arabia was forced to shut its East-West Pipeline on Friday after it was targeted by drones from Iraq. That pipeline has been a critical lifeline for the country’s oil exports after Iran effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. No one took responsibility for the drone attack, but Iraq has long harbored well-armed militias backed by Iran.

The meeting in Oman will take place as talks with the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have stalled. Iran has continued to fire on ships passing through the strait, squeezing the Gulf Arab states and roiling global oil markets. Last week, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly exceeded $110 a barrel, its highest level for months, before dropping to about $104 on Sunday.

Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said last week that the meeting would be held in Oman, which has often served as a mediator between the United States and Iran. Participating countries would discuss efforts by Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he added.

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